


delta / uniform / oscar

by captainpeggy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:12:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6626524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainpeggy/pseuds/captainpeggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is that confessions aren't actually the end of the story.</p><p>You've got to read <a href="http://sadhipstercat.tumblr.com/post/143039172327/bitty-nervously-gathers-his-friends-one-afternoon">this</a> to understand the fic, but that post is the reason I banged out a 1.7k fic in two hours so trust me. it's Good Stuff</p>
            </blockquote>





	delta / uniform / oscar

_“Huh. Cool. Let’s do that sometime.”_

_“Huh. Cool. Let’s do that sometime.”_

_“Huh. Cool. Let’s do that sometime.”_

It had been a hell of a discussion.

Bitty and Jack had hardly been much of a surprise: Bitty’s room was practically wallpapered in Falconers merch, and Tango had been telling people for ages that the guy _had_ to be dating someone famous. He was curious, not stupid, and he resented it when people couldn’t tell the difference (even though sometimes, he couldn’t either). It _had_ been nice to be the guy who wasn’t brimming with questions for once. 

But that hadn’t been enough.

‘Course not. 

He’d had to say it.

The words had popped out like a cork from a champagne bottle-- filters were for the weak, his friends back home always joked when he made a remark, not pausing to realize that he wasn’t laughing. That their entertainment didn’t provide an answer. There’d been lots of days like that. Days when he couldn’t pick between asking something dumb or _staying_ dumb, staying in the dark; between not getting the joke and being the joke. Maybe filters _were_ for the weak. But things were probably less awkward for the weak, too.

Not that he’d been lying, or anything. It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about it. In fact, he remembered the first time he thought about it, down to the hour of the day: seven P.M, if you’re curious. Seven P.M. in the Haus kitchen as Whiskey reached buisness-like across the table to take a forkful of Tango’s pie (raspberry) and the juice stained his lips a bright shade of red (burgundy, really) and he ripped off a piece of paper towel to wipe it off. And Tango had literally bitten his tongue to stop himself from saying something-- what would he have said? He didn’t know. He just knew he probably shouldn’t say it.

So he hadn’t. And he didn’t. And he wouldn’t.

And yeah, it had taken him awhile to figure out what it was, because it hadn’t felt in that moment like a _crush,_ not like the way crushes were supposed to feel; he didn’t know what the drop in his stomach was supposed to mean, whether the way he’d glanced at Whiskey’s lips a split second too long meant anything at all. What the persistent, nagging question of _God, I wonder how those lips would taste_ meant. 

This, see, was the part where he’d usually ask a question.

Not randomly, obviously, hardly over dinner: he had tact. He’d have talked to Bitty or something, maybe Lardo-- grouchy as their manager had been at the beginning of the year, she’d softened up, and he figured that their impromptu Christmas visit from a certain Harvard student had something to do with that. She seemed like the type to listen, even if all he got back was a mildly sarcastic “feelings suck, bro”. 

Except he hadn’t. And he didn’t. And he wouldn’t have.

He blurted it out.

He blurted it out because everyone had been saying something. Because when Dex had spoken up, when Nursey had thrown in his personal amendment, when Holster and Ransom had smirked at each other across the room, the only thing on his mind was Whiskey. Relationships made him think of Whiskey. His teammates made him think of Whiskey. That entire goddamn _living room_ made him think of Whiskey, and did they all so desperately need to be discussing their sex lives right now, right there, right in front of him when _Whiskey_ was leaning up against one of the walls, a faint grin twisting his mouth, a chipped old mug of coffee in his hand? 

They didn’t, but they were, and they were all _talking_ and he _wasn’t_ and Whiskey was _drinking fucking coffee_ and the room was full of laughter and a strange sense of euphoria hit him-- and then he opened his mouth and--

_“Huh. Cool. Let’s do that sometime.”_

Now. Where the hell was Tango supposed to go with that?

He’d sat there blankly for a while (a second, maybe two) then politely excused himself to go get a glass of water.

Which he did.

And then he drank it.

And then he left.

That was the story. It was a boring one.

His dorm was right down the hall from where Bitty’s had been, something that had triggered a motherly instinct in the boy when he found out: for the next few weeks, Tango kept being sent back to the dorm with pies and strict orders to not touch the cafeteria food. He’d also received several new pairs of flip-flops, each with _DON’T GO BAREFOOT IN THE SHOWERS :)_ scrawled in Sharpie across the sole.

This had confused him, and he would have asked why he needed so many flip-flops (he’d brought a pair, of course) except that before he had a chance, his original pair began to rot. It was unnerving. Tango threw them out and thanked God and the South for Eric Bittle.

The dorm room was plain, but that was to be expected, and the clothes draped about gave it a homey flair. Nothing to jazz up a carpet like a few hoodies and maybe some clean boxers he’d never put away. At least, he thought they were clean. He was 90% sure. Maybe 85. 

No roommate, which was a blessing as Tango finally wandered back to the building and flopped face-first onto his bed with a moan. He felt less stupid, but more clueless than ever. Clueless at school, clueless at Whiskey. Fucking clueless.

He lay there for a while.

Then he remembered Ransom’s drunken diatribe on the necessity of oxygen in the breakdown of glucose into ATP ( _it’s… you need it… air, bro. We need air or we… die_ )and flipped over onto his back.

Then he remembered Ransom’s drunken diatribe on Whiskey’s first goal of the season, and he rolled over again, mashing his confused little head into the mattress. Groaning, he grabbed a pillow and pressed it over his ears like he was five and could hide from the world under it.

His heartbeat was oddly loud, the sound sharper than usual. More of a tap than a thump. _Tap-tap-tap._ Then it stopped.

Tango’s first four thoughts were, in order: _shit, how long can I stay conscious if I’m in cardiac arrest, can I defibrillate myself if I can get to the one down the hall, am I going to die,_ and _I don’t want to die a virgin._ His fifth thought was _wait, that’s not my heart._

His sixth was _someone’s knocking._

His seventh was _can I be so scared that I’m having a heart attack that I actually have a heart attack?_

He threw his pillow on the floor, annoyed, and got up before his brain had a chance to churn out an eighth. Not too many people knew where his dorm room was-- he’d told Lardo for some kind of registry thing, and Bitty. Obviously, anyone he knew could find out if they asked around, but he didn’t think anyone cared enough to do that.

He froze with his hand an inch away from the door handle.

_“Huh. Cool. Let’s do that sometime.”_

There were other things he hadn’t thought about, too.

Palm on the handle, a little jiggle to get around the way it always jammed, a twist to the right. He pulled it open. Whiskey stood in the hall, dressed in exactly what he’d been wearing earlier: narrow jeans. A sweatshirt. Weekend clothes.

He looked up, as if to double-check the room number. “For someone who asks so many questions, people don’t ask you enough back.”

Tango blinked.

“People don’t ask me a lot of questions either,” conceded Whiskey, “but that’s all right. I don’t ask very many myself. Can I come in?”

“Uh. Yeah.” Still holding the door handle, Tango stepped back to let his teammate in. “Who told you where my room was?”

“Got a text from some weird anonymous number. Signed “J.” Said it was for the plot, or something… Holster just snorted and told me to go. Opinions?”

Tango’s brow furrowed. “So you’ll just follow any creepy directions from a stranger with a cell phone.”

“I’m here now,” Whiskey stated matter-of-factly. “Why’d you leave?”

The old wooden door clicked shut as Tango let go of it to scratch his forehead. “I don’t know. Why did you say… that? Back at the Haus.”

A bit of a smile played at Whiskey’s lips. “Mm. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t _know,_ ” Tango groaned. “I don’t know. I don’t know! The answer to my question is dependent on the answer to yours! There are no answers!”

Whiskey glanced around the room, hands in his pockets. “Huh. You sure you’re not double-majoring in metaphysics? You’d be good at it.”

“I meant it,” said Tango.

“Me too,” said Whiskey.

“Really,” said Tango.

“It’s sometime, you know,” said Whiskey. 

“Good,” said Tango, and then he stepped up, placed a hand on Whiskey’s shoulder, and pulled him into a kiss.

There were a lot of questions whirling around in his mind.

They were complicated, fragmented, and as one was about to form itself into a whole, Whiskey tangled his fingers in Tango’s hair and it scattered; as a seemingly irresistible force tried to push him off on a tangent of thinking, his hands found Whiskey’s waist, the hem of his sweatshirt, and all of a sudden it was quiet again, but it wasn’t quiet, not at all-- it just wasn’t _busy._

It was quiet in the way a forest in springtime is quiet, quiet in the way the trees would be if they weren’t humming with life: quiet in the way that an apartment just off a busy street is quiet, with the sounds of the city so _there,_ so beautiful, so loud, so none-of-your-concern. 

There were no words dancing in Tango’s head anymore.

Now, in this moment of this day of this year.

No words.

Just a kaleidoscope of colour.

**Author's Note:**

> like always, here I am to recommend a thing instead of babbling incoherently about how much I love you guys for reading: the book _Front Lines_ by Michael Grant is what I'm reading right now, and it's really good. 
> 
> also, like always, here I am to break my promise not to babble incoherently. I love you guys, and reading your comments and seeing your hits and kudos means so, so much to me. thank you again.


End file.
